Lying Eyes
by embracing-shadows
Summary: He taught her how to lie without asking why. He should have just asked. It would have been faster.


It was ironic that she was taking this problem to him, of all the friends she could go to. After all, it was him that was the cause of her problem, even if he didn't know it. However, he was the authority on this kind of stuff, so she supposed that it made sense to go to him for it.

He had even been the one to start everything. When he had casually commented on just how bad she was at lying, she hadn't done more than laugh it off at the time. When she began to understand the feelings she had towards him, though, she realized that she had to do something about it. He couldn't find out. There was simply no way he could feel the same, he had made that clear in his body language and the distance he always kept from her. But how was she to keep this from him when she couldn't even hide the smallest lie from showing on her face? She needed to learn to lie. He was just the man to teach her.

That was how she came to be sitting at Varric's low table in his room at the Hanged Man. The chair was built for a human, but the table was built for a dwarf, and her knees were uncomfortably close to the wood above them. Varric was smirking at her over the rim of his mug as he spoke. She shook her head and began to listen again, setting aside her daydreams of how she had gotten in to this mess.

"It's not really something you're born, no matter what people say," he was telling her. "A good lie is something you practise." Hawke furrowed her brows.

"But it's so obvious when I lie," she mourned. "I've tried to practise before. When we were little Carver and I broke Mother's favourite candle holder. We practised our story for hours and she knew right away from just one look at me!" She huffed at the memory, knowing she hadn't gotten any better at it over the years. Varric chuckled a little.

"Everyone has tells, Hawke," he assured her. "Even I have tells. But I've learned what my more obvious ones are and taught myself to stop. It's about knowing yourself and practising self-control." He took a swig of ale and set the mug down, leaning forward. "For example, you look down when you lie, and when you're lying making it up on the spot you look down and to the right."

Hawke raised an eyebrow. Come to think of it, she knew she looked down when lying, but it was automatic, and she never gave it much thought. It had always seemed safer. She was afraid that if she looked them in the eye either they would know right away or she would cave.

"So…I teach myself not to look down?" she guessed. Varric nodded.

"Go on, look me in the eye, keep your face straight, and tell me you have six sisters and a demon for a brother," he encouraged her with a smile. Hawke grinned.

"Well that one is easy, I _do_ have a demon for a brother," she laughed. She missed Carver, would never forgive herself for not being able to save him from that ogre, but she was honest with herself. They had never seen eye to eye – on anything. They had been fighting when they broke the candle holder.

"Very funny Hawke," Varric conceded, "now lie to me."

Hawke took a deep breath, looked him right in the eye, and said, "I find Anders the most attractive man in Kirkwall." It would have been perfect, if at the last second she hadn't cracked a smile. Varric grinned his very special grin of amusement, the one that meant he thought something was delightfully funny.

"Ew," was all he said. It sent them both in to gales of laughter. When finally they both calmed down, Varric tapped one finger against his chin seriously. "I think I may have just found something to help you," he announced.

"Oh Varric, anything!" Hawke exclaimed, leaning forward and placing both her hands palm-down on the table. He smirked.

"Always lovely to hear a woman say that," he jested. "The thing is, if you're lying as a joke, you can pull it off perfectly. But if you're lying in a real situation you stink worse than your marbari does. If you could just treat every lie you tell like a big joke, you'd come out perfect."

Hawke stared at him for a few moments, and she thought it over carefully. The theory was a strange one, she had to admit, but she was willing to try anything, really. She took a moment to try and image herself implementing that tactic in a real life situation, lying to some thug in Darktown. The notion of secretly laughing at people in her own head had a certain appeal when she looked at it that way.

"You're a genius," she said suddenly. "A mad one, but a genius all the same." Varric raised his mug to her, and she toasted him back. They both drank deeply of ale, banging the mugs down loudly to signal to whatever barmaid was close enough to hear that they wanted another round.

"I think I like solving your problems, Hawke," Varric told her. "They're always so much less complicated than my own. Go here, kill him. Go there, pick a lock. Teach me to lie."

"Go on, Varric, tell me a lie. I want to see if I can find your tell." She smiled at him and he shook his head. It wasn't a no answer, more of a shake at her enthusiasm for something so strange.

"Did I ever tell you that Bartrand and I had a sister? Died in her first year, poor thing. Caught the Deep Colic." His eyes were so sad that she almost believed him for a moment before remembering what she had requested of him.

"Wow, that was good!" she exclaimed. "You almost had me believing you had a sister." Varric raised a single eyebrow at her.

"I do have a sister," he said. "But there is no such thing as Deep Colic and she's still alive." Hawke started.

"Well I'll be. That was sneaky of you, mixing truth in with it!" she said. Suddenly he began to laugh loudly.

"Got you again," he declared. "I don't have a sister. Bartrand is my only sibling." Hawke gaped at him, having nothing to say to that. She would admit to being a bad liar; that was a well-established fact. One thing she did not think she was, however, was gullible. She thought she was pretty good at reading people. Having him trick her so easily did not do much for her ego.

"How do you do it so easily? And so well?" she questioned. He shrugged.

"I have lots of experience protecting…certain interests." He said quietly. In the two and a half years that Hawke had known Varric, she'd never heard him say anything so softly, or so honestly. It made her suspicious immediately.

They talked late that night, sharing many more cups of ale before Hawke stumbled back to her uncle's ramshackle hut in Lowtown. Varric offered to escort her, had tried to insist on it, but she had waved him off. She was bad enough of a liar when sober, how would she keep her secret safe when drunk? It was why she had hauled herself out of the room in the first place.

A time had been that she would have just crashed on the other side of his bed, sharing a tea before she left in the morning. Those days were gone now. The thought of lying next to him and resisting reaching to touch was more than she knew her self-control could bear. So instead she had escorted her drunken self home, waking her sister up as she stumbled through the door, needing help locating her own bedroom.

The next morning, when she was heading out to the Wounded Coast with Merrill, Isabella, and Aveline for a visit to the Dalish, she stopped by to see him. He told her have fun and joked that he would enjoy the peace while she was gone, winking at her. She grinned good-naturedly, hoped he was joking, and hurried to catch up with her friends.

After that, Hawke had a new hobby of watching Varric whenever she knew he was lying, trying to find the tell. He was smooth, she had to admit it. Even when she knew for a fact that he was flat out lying, she found herself almost believing his tallest tales. He could smile and tell the biggest fibs, and he could frown and bullshit their group out of tight situations. He spun wonderful stories out of thin air – mostly about her to amuse the people of Kirkwall – and all with a sincere air of credibility.

One day, though, it finally hit her. She discovered his tell by accident. It just came to her all of a sudden, the many times she had watched him so intently all clicking together in to one impenetrable conclusion. Varric lied with his eyes. It was there in every lie he told. He winked, and wiggled both his eyebrows, and lifted just one eyebrow. His eyes could darken dangerously on command, or sparkle with false mirth at a mere thought. When he was truly amused, it showed on his entire face, it showed in his smile. When he was truly angry, it was there in the set of his jaw and the clench of his fists. But when he lied, he lied with his eyes.

Delighted that she had cracked his secret, Hawke made a special trip to the Hanged Man, later in the night than she usually would. She was exhausted from a long day playing hide and kill with a group of Coterie assassins, but it would be worth the trip just to see Varric's face when she announced that she had found his tell – and wasn't going to reveal it to him.

The tavern was busy, the later hours being more common for having drunkards fill the establishment. Isabella was at the bar downing shots in a competition with a man in sailor's garb. Hawke slipped by without letting her friend spot her. She was on a mission, and wouldn't let small things slow her down. Not even the very inebriated man who propositioned her as she passed him by grabbing her ass. A quick draw of her dagger and a thin line of blood made her point before she continued on her way.

Varric's door was opened, and he was seated at his table, quill scratching away on one of the many parchments spread out before him. She watched him for a moment, admiring the golden glow of his hair by firelight, and the way the shadows brought out the shape of his jaw. She had always liked that he didn't wear a beard. The ever present short scruff suited him much more in her opinion.

Finally she thought it would be rude to stare longer. Gently she knocked on the door that she was leaning against and smiled at him when he looked up. He seemed to study her standing there. To her great amusement, he raised one eyebrow at her.

"I was wondering when you were going to announce yourself," he said. He was lying. He could tell by her posture that she had been there a while. More of his cool, unruffled persona flew out the window right there, and it caused her a great deal of amusement.

"I was in the neighbourhood and thought I would stop by to say hello," she told him, looking him in the eye and never once wavering. He swallowed it whole. He lay down his quill and pushed the documents away from himself.

"Have a seat, I always have time for you," he answered. Though she looked hard for it, his eyes didn't so much as twitch. A warmth grew in her chest, despite her trying to quell it. Even if he didn't return her feelings, it was gratifying to learn that he held her in such a high regard.

"I wanted to thank you for helping me with…my little problem," she told him honestly. Even if he wasn't sure what the whole problem was, he had still helped a great deal.

He waved her off nonchalantly, "It was my pleasure. Like I said, I always save time for you, darling." Hawke didn't listen to him as he began to speak about something that had happened to them that day. She was too caught on the last word of his sentence. It wasn't the first time he had used the endearment when speaking to her. He called Merrill Daisy, but he called her darling. It had never held any sort of significance before, but tonight it caught her attention.

"Why do you call me that?" she asked suddenly. Varric halted in the middle of his sentence about some thug they had been evading earlier. He blinked.

"What?" he asked, obviously having no clue what she meant. She smiled.

"Darling. Why do you call me darling?" she reiterated. Varric smirked.

"What, a trusty sidekick dwarf can't show a little affection for his stalwart leader?" he joked. His brows came down a little. She smirked this time.

"That's all it is? A little camaraderie? Varric you wouldn't happen to have fallen for my irresistible charms, would you?" she inserted a teasing tone in to her voice. Varric's reaction almost stopped her heart. His eyes darkened and he lifted an eyebrow.

"And add to the already tangled mess that is your romantic life? Please, Hawke, I would never do that to you." He tried to assure her. And then he winked at her. She tried to hold on to her smirk for dear life.

"No feelings for me at all?" she continued to tease. "Varric, you're crushing my heart, here." He looked at her strangely.

"I doubt that," he replied. This time, he didn't lie. It touched her. Her smirk softened in to a genuine smile and she stood up from her chair, walking around the table and reaching down to touch her fingertips to the back of his hand.

"You shouldn't," she whispered. He stared, not knowing how to react to that statement. It seemed to Hawke that she had two options. On the one hand, there were enough hints here to give her a spark of hope. She could throw caution to the wind and take a chance and hope to the Maker that she was right. On the other hand, she could once again be reading him all wrong. There could be more to this than she understood. There was a chance that she could ruin their entire friendship in one stupid move.

Hawke had always prided herself on being a brave woman, one who always took the chance.

Varric looked worried when she suddenly fell to her knees beside his chair, and she could see that he was about to ask if she was alright. Words, however, were beyond her at this point. If she stopped to explain, she would lose this chance, this bravery.

Varric froze in his chair when she pressed her lips to his, not moving, almost as if for fear that this was all a dream. She kissed him more firmly, and then he was kissing her back, winding one large strong hand behind her head to pull her in closer. Both of her arms found their way around his broad shoulders and she tilted her face to get a better angle, tilting her lips on his as she dated her tongue out to lick at his lips. When he allowed her entry, darting his own tongue own to battle with hers, she fell a surge of victory.

Eventually they pulled apart to breathe, and Varric stared at her, still shocked. She chuckled gently under her breath and spoke low to him, "Never doubt that you have the power to crush my heart, Varric. You've crushed it every day for the past year by not saying anything. Which brings me to my next point, why didn't you say anything?" He had the good grace to look a trifle embarrassed.

"For all my bragging, Hawke, have you even seen me with a woman?" he pointed out. She furrowed her brows and thought about it. Now that he mentioned it, no. He continued, "While I do enjoy painting myself as a successful ladies man, I don't have the first clue what to say to a woman. Add to that the fact that you are not only human and twice my height, but beautiful and the champion of Kirkwall to boot. What chance did I possibly have?" he shrugged as if sloughing the whole matter off, but Hawke shook her head at him.

"Every chance, obviously, you silly, handsome, mad genius." They laughed together, then he drew her in for a second kiss.

Hours later, when they lay catching their breath on top of twisted, damp sheets, he asked her the question she had known he wouldn't be able to resists asking.

"So how did you know?" he wondered out loud. She smirked in to his shoulder, knowing he couldn't see her face.

"I saw that you were lying when you said you had no romantic in me," she admitted. He went stiff underneath her, amusing her further and widening her smirk.

"You _saw_ that I was lying?" he exclaimed.

"Well yes," she replied nonchalantly, "I found your tell."

"What is it?" he demanded. She smirked harder than she even had in her entire life.

"I'm not telling," she told him. "I need _something_ to one up you with. If you wanted to get it out of me, you shouldn't have taught me to lie to you."


End file.
